Training Camp 2024

[CBears019]

24 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

 

Per Pelissero about an hour ago whatever it was before, they’re past it. Just waiting on the team announcement now. 

Yeah now it’s done.  I wonder if the bears caved to his reported wish to omit the FT after the rookie deal is up.

[dll2000]

 

[AZBearsFan]

4 hours ago, CBears019 said:

Yeah now it’s done.  I wonder if the bears caved to his reported wish to omit the FT after the rookie deal is up.

I can’t imagine they did. I’m not even sure they could under the CBA to be honest. 

[soulman]

On 7/16/2024 at 8:38 AM, dll2000 said:

So many of Poles (as with Pace) draft picks are upside, traits projects.  Minor lottery tickets. 

I'm not certain all of the guys you name are as "traits based" as all that.

It's true Amegadie played against Ivy League competition but when you review his game tapes the kid dominated his opponents which is what you want to see from a guy drafted from that level.  Once he was given his shot at Kansas Booker pretty much did the same even as an undersized part time edge rusher.  He's not all that undersized any longer and much bigger than I thought him to be.

Bagent is another kid who dominated at his college level and also showed at least so far that the NFL isn't too big or too fast for him and the two LBs you also mentioned; Edwards and Sanborn were highly productive college players who were deemed to lack ideal metrics or traits and yet both a very heady instinctive football players.  So here I agree that none of these three are all that traits based.

Dexter and Pickens are though especially Dexter.  With his size, length, and natural strength if they can teach him how to play as a 3 Tech DT he could be another dominant interior pass rusher.  Pickens was a little more productive in college but I believe it's his size and quickness Poles drafted him for.  More of a project than a day one starter.  I believe Gordon was the same type of a pick in his draft.

I don't really mind Poles doing that as long as he plays it safe with his top picks and uses his FA dollars on proven talent.  So far he seems to have done pretty much that.  For the first time in a long while I feel confident and believe in the GM whose building the team.

[dll2000]

I think if Caleb were a few inches taller he would be nearly a perfect prospect.  No one is perfect.

He is big, fast, and great arm.  Accurate.  By many accounts really football smart.  Charismatic.  Leader.  

Remains to be seen if 1) he can handle emotions of being the reason your team lost a game in Chicago.  That is going to happen.  It happens to everyone. Whether he can handle mass public criticism of his play.  We have seen he can handle mass criticism of his personal life already.  Play is different.  

2) He can learn to play fast at NFL level.  He isn’t there yet.  I think he will revert to extending plays too much until or if he gets there.  I don’t think he will ever not extend plays, that is his game.  Just like it is Aaron Rodgers game and Ben Rothelisbergers game and Mahomes game.   It isn’t bad. Many of best do that. But you still have to be able to play on time if it is there.  

I think and predict that Bears fans and some media are going to overly critical of holding ball and extending plays early because of Fields doing it near exclusively.   That has caused some scars.

[dll2000]

 

[soulman]

1 hour ago, dll2000 said:

I think if Caleb were a few inches taller he would be nearly a perfect prospect.  No one is perfect.

He is big, fast, and great arm.  Accurate.  By many accounts really football smart.  Charismatic.  Leader.  

Remains to be seen if 1) he can handle emotions of being the reason your team lost a game in Chicago.  That is going to happen.  It happens to everyone. Whether he can handle mass public criticism of his play.  We have seen he can handle mass criticism of his personal life already.  Play is different.  

2) He can learn to play fast at NFL level.  He isn’t there yet.  I think he will revert to extending plays too much until or if he gets there.  I don’t think he will ever not extend plays, that is his game.  Just like it is Aaron Rodgers game and Ben Rothelisbergers game and Mahomes game.   It isn’t bad. Many of best do that. But you still have to be able to play on time if it is there.  

I think and predict that Bears fans and some media are going to overly critical of holding ball and extending plays early because of Fields doing it near exclusively.   That has caused some scars.

Great point but shouldn't everyone at least give CW the benefit of the doubt?  It seems that very little can be gained from his style of play at USC simply because he lacked the OL protection and the skill player assets he'll have in Chicago.  I believe if the OL can give him time to go through his progressions he'll do a lot less impromptu riffing back there.

A good OC and Passing Game Coordinator should also be able to create and call some quick read plays for him in the way of slants and screens that can take advantage of a receivers YAC ability.  Moore has that in spades and Odunze should have it as well.  CW also seems to have far better pocket awareness and an ability to move around within the pocket than JF ever evidenced.

[soulman]

1 hour ago, dll2000 said:

 

Never hurts to ask but there was no way the Bears would do that and set a precedent for other top picks in future years.  Other delays seem to have been based on an attorney whose not familiar with NFL "boilerplate" in it's contracts and having to understand them.  In my career I've worked with dozens of attorneys and what I've often found is they get paid by the number of words read or written.

The longer the letter written to act offended by something said or done by the other party and the more arcane and difficult the language in a contract is to understand the higher the fee for writing or reading it.  And I'm not trying to disparage attorneys here I'm just stating some of the realities I experienced. I was actually somewhat jealous that I could never bill like that myself.....LOL.

[dll2000]

7 minutes ago, soulman said:

Great point but shouldn't everyone at least give CW the benefit of the doubt?  It seems that very little can be gained from his style of play at USC simply because he lacked the OL protection and the skill player assets he'll have in Chicago.  I believe if the OL can give him time to go through his progressions he'll do a lot less impromptu riffing back there.

A good OC and Passing Game Coordinator should also be able to create and call some quick read plays for him in the way of slants and screens that can take advantage of a receivers YAC ability.  Moore has that in spades and Odunze should have it as well.  CW also seems to have far better pocket awareness and an ability to move around within the pocket than JF ever evidenced.

I think he will extend plays because he can, regardless.  I know he had to at USC often in 2nd year because he had a bad oline and avg. or below avg. receivers and a terrible defense.

But even so doing that for a full season may cause muscle memory and habit.  And like I said, extending plays is not always a bad thing.   Rodgers has won many games against us because he extended plays and made them.

 

 

[dll2000]

2 minutes ago, soulman said:

Never hurts to ask but there was no way the Bears would do that and set a precedent for other top picks in future years.  Other delays seem to have been based on an attorney whose not familiar with NFL "boilerplate" in it's contracts and having to understand them.  In my career I've worked with dozens of attorneys and what I've often found is they get paid by the number of words read or written.

The longer the letter written to act offended by something said or done by the other party and the more arcane and difficult the language in a contract is to understand the higher the fee for writing or reading it.  And I'm not trying to disparage attorneys here I'm just stating some of the realities I experienced. I was actually somewhat jealous that I could never bill like that myself.....LOL.

This is mostly true.

I am good at my job because I work with same contracts again and again and I know them backward and forward.

I can could give a really good example of how I saved my client money that just happened very recently because I knew contract very well.  I can think of 3 more off top of my head just from this year.   But I am not going to give details publicly.  You never know who is reading this and my identity is fairly easily discoverable.  

Attorneys that dabble are not typically as good as specialists.  That is true in anything really.  Specialization is how you get really good at things.  I just did a closing yesterday, and I had to save the deal for my client and the other sides client so it could close.  For 80% of attorneys that deal would not have closed yesterday.  

The closer said I should get both attorney fees for the amount of work I was forced to do and quickly to salvage things.   She was serious and wasn't wrong. 

It's not first time I have had to do that.  Attorney's think Real Estate is easy and then they screw it up all the time.  This is true in other areas of law too, I have seen it in workers comp especially early in my career as well.

  Look at Bears.  They totally screwed up the initial taxes for the Arlington deal.  I don't have facts, but I can take an educated guess that the initial tax bill was their fault for not applying to demolish Arlington sooner and just taking the previous year tax bill with some percentage added on at closing.  If someone could get closing settlement statement from that transaction, I bet I am right.

That type of commercial deal isn't area of expertise, but even so I would have known enough to brought up the issue pre-closing for sure and that initial tax fight would have never happened.  It would have either been taxed as vacant land from jump or we would have known it wasn't going to be taxed as vacant for a year and gone in eyes open as to what our tax bill was likely to be.   Getting proper tax proration on a real estate transaction is kind of a big deal.  Someone dropped the ball IMO.  

I don't bill by hour except for custom contracts - usually in commercial work - because stuff like above happens.  When contracts are non-standard you really have to study them and that takes time. 

 My residential work is all flat fees.

 

[dll2000]

@soulman

Dollars for donuts Bears used their in house attorneys for the Arlington closing rather than a commercial real estate attorney.

Saving money can screw you sometimes.  

Just a guess.  But I am probably right.  

[HuskieBear]

Kromah was one of our UDFAs that i was intrigued to see - don't think he can make the 53, but potentially PS. hopefully he gets healthy soon - 4 PS games this year should really help those bottom of the roster guys

[soulman]

Just now, dll2000 said:

I think he will extend plays because he can, regardless.  I know he had to at USC often in 2nd year because he had a bad oline and avg. or below avg. receivers and a terrible defense.

But even so doing that for a full season may cause muscle memory and habit.  And like I said, extending plays is not always a bad thing.   Rodgers has won many games against us because he extended plays and made them.

 

 

Oh, neither do I which is why I sue for patience and the understanding that's his style of play.

Rodgers often killed us with them so I'm looking forward to turning the table on GB in that regard but Rodgers also killed us with his fast read/release slants and other quick single read plays.  He was always good at taking what we gave him and we always gave too much.

[beardown3231]

O/U: 2.5 practices before Nate Davis needs a day off?

 

[AZBearsFan]

2 hours ago, soulman said:

Oh, neither do I which is why I sue for patience and the understanding that's his style of play.

Rodgers often killed us with them so I'm looking forward to turning the table on GB in that regard but Rodgers also killed us with his fast read/release slants and other quick single read plays.  He was always good at taking what we gave him and we always gave too much.

Off schedule plays are what makes a lot of great QBs great (Mahomes, Allen, Rodgers, etc.), but you have to be able to make the ordinary ones pretty much all the time too or you end up being just a different shade of mediocre. Fields was good at the latter, but his inability to do the former with any regularity is why he’s where he is in his career right now. Williams’ skill set and experience shows that he should be able to do both. Only time will tell.